Free Big Sky Rancher by Carolyn Davidson Page A

not blind. Far from it, in fact, and he halted in the doorway, enjoying the view in front of his eyes.
    Jennifer looked up at him, flushed and frustrated. “Come and tie this thing, will you?” she asked, holding the tapes in one hand as she attempted to hold her petticoat in place with the other. Her bandages hampered her and she was obviously ready to cry again, spurring him into action.
    â€œJust hang on, sweetheart,” he said. “Let me help.” His big fingers felt awkward. Strange, he thought, that it was simpler to get a woman out of her clothes than it was to put her back into them. Setting that image aside as unworthy of him as a new husband, he lifted her dress over her head and buttoned her into it.
    â€œShoes and stockings?” he asked, and was given a look almost guaranteed to sear paint from the wall.
    â€œI’ll wear my slippers,” she said, fumbling with one hand in her valise. The slippers appeared with little effort expended on her part and she dropped them to the floor, then slid her feet into them.
    â€œYour help is waiting in the kitchen,” Lucas told her. “Mrs. Bronson came back with me, and she’s all set to put things to rights. Starting with my dirty windows and floors.”
    â€œIt’s not surprising,” Jennifer said. “And from there, she’ll no doubt locate a dust cloth and start on the furniture.”
    â€œJust don’t let her forget to make dinner before she gets out of the kitchen,” Lucas said, deciding to ignore Jennifer’s remark about dust. The reason that women got all het up about a little fuzz on the furnishings was beyond his understanding. His mother had been the same way, back when he was a child and thought that writing his name on a steamy window was great fun.
    She’d quickly disabused him of that notion and handed him a vinegar dampened cloth to clean the whole set of panes, andhe’d learned his lesson: women had funny notions when it came to what went on in the house. Nothing had changed his mind on that subject since, even though his mother had tried.
    He thought of the woman who’d borne him, recalling her soft voice, her rough hands that had spread warm turpentine on his chest when he had a cold, that had comforted him when he’d fallen and scraped a knee or cut a finger with his pocketknife.
    She was dead and gone, leaving him only a few inanimate objects as a legacy—the apron he’d hung in silent reminder of the only woman who’d loved him, the box of home remedies he’d used for Jennifer’s benefit only yesterday and the chest in the attic, holding mementoes of her past. Those long years when she’d worked hard at being a wife and mother had culminated with her dying on a spring morning, long after her only son had left home. He hadn’t even made it back in time for her funeral.
    â€œAre you all right?” This time Jennifer asked him the question and he blinked and nodded.
    â€œYes, I’m fine. Just thinking of something.”
    â€œIt must not have been a happy memory,” she ventured. “You looked almost…almost sad.”
    He cleared his throat. “I suppose I was, there, for a minute.”
    â€œShall we go down and see Mrs. Bronson now?”
    â€œYou gonna do something with your hair first?” He wanted to know. “I like it that way, but it’s not as neat as you had it when you got here.”
    â€œMaybe Mrs. Bronson will braid it for me,” she said, lifting her left hand to brush loose strands from her face. It was a futile gesture, for the wave settled back into place in mere seconds. Snatching up a brush and a short length of ribbon from a small, metal box she’d taken from her valise, she faced him expectantly.
    â€œI’m ready.”
    And she was, as bright-eyed as the bluebirds that sat on the fence posts and seemed to take over ownership of the yard. Or maybe she was more like the